[Digikam-users] How to keep digiKam from deleting image files

[Elle Stone]

Jonas and Jean-François, thank you very much for the suggested
solutions, both of which sound like they would work. I implemented a
solution that is somewhat similar to both solutions. I created a new
user called "archival" and gave ownership of the image folders and
also the image files (which are all "read only") to "archival". Then I
set the sticky bit on the folders. So now digiKam can read the image
files and also create and write to xmp sidecar files, but no-one
except the user "archival" can delete or modify the images. When I
need to modify the actual image files, I "su" to being the user
"archival". The idea wasn't mine, it was suggested over in the Gentoo
forums. It does work. DigiKam can't delete my image files.

Posix and extended attributes both sound interesting, but for now the
sticky-bit solution is working pretty well. The only remaining problem
is that I'd like to use digiKam to manage folders of images that
simply can't be made read only and can't be transferred to the user
archival.

As digiKam has the ability to select lots of images for valid image
management reasons, and Marie-Noëlle and I both somehow manage to hit
keyboard combinations that we don't mean to hit (it's nice to know I'm
not the only one!), I am somewhat leery of using digiKam to manage
albums with images that aren't read-only and do need to be modified at
will (although not ever directly by digiKam, which I only use for
image management).

Which is why the option to disable the ability to delete images would
be nice to have for those of us who don't want digiKam to delete any
images, any time, for any reason. Although perhaps I'm the only such
person?

Elle

-- 
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